"Aimee ..." His voice comes out husky and low and very unbrotherlike.

My hands grab the side of his face and I pull him to the proper angle because I can't wait anymore, can't hope for him to make the first move. So I kiss him. My lips touch his lips. My breath meets his breath. And we grab at each other. His hands clutch the fabric of my coat and my hands cling to his face, holding him there, because I'm so afraid of letting him go, of having him drift away.

There is enough light coming through the truck windows that I can see the tiny lines in the skin by his eyes, the place where his eyebrows stop. When he opens his eyes, the brown of them makes me smile and laugh, surprised and happy.

"I kissed you," I say, breaking away, but not going too far. My hands fall into my lap.

"Yeah," he says.

I punch his arm. "That's all you have to say? 'Yeah'?"

"h.e.l.l yeah?" he teases, then hops out of the truck. I manage to scurry across the seat, open my door, and jump out before he can open the door for me. Landing on my leg hurts a little bit. Still, I gloat.

"Ha!" I point at him.

He fake clutches his heart. "How will my macho masculine self survive?"

"Shut up." I bop my hip into him. He drapes an arm around my shoulder and we head toward the house, but then I stop at the last second. "I'm scared."

"Of the house? It'll be okay. I've smudged it. And I'll be right here."

"No," I explain. "Not of the house. Of your mom."

He lets go of me. "My mom?"

I nod, kind of fiercely.

"You look like a little kid when you do that," he says.

I shrug.

"And now you're shrugging?" He cracks up.

"Not funny."

"No? But I'll tell you what is funny: you being scared of my mom." He gets that gigantic smile he gets.

"Like you weren't scared of my dad?" I grab the doork.n.o.b and start to turn it, but then it jerks open and Alan's mom (I mean, I think it must be Alan's mom) is standing there, a super-huge look of happy planted on her face.

"So," she says, and I catch a lot of tired in her eyes. "You must be Aimee. Oh, what a cute girl you are, all that red hair."

She hustles me inside, not giving me a second to answer. Instead, she just keeps talking and talking and talking. I catch phrases like "Oh, I am so glad that Alan has found someone." And "Courtney says such good things about you." And "I heard you were a good student. I hope that rubs off on-"

Seriously, it's a frenzy of mom-talk, and finally Alan goes up to her and puts his hand gently over her mouth. "Mom. Breathe."

She grabs his wrist and pulls his hand away. "I can't breathe with your hand on my face." She adjusts her shirt and then her hair. Some wood chips sprinkle out like overlarge pieces of dandruff, and she says, "I guess I was talking your head off, wasn't I?"

"I do that all the time when I'm nervous. Not that you're nervous." I cringe.

"Oh, she's making excuses for me. She is nice." Ms. Parson bends down to pick some wood chips off the rug. I squat down and help her. They are tiny beige chips in a carpet of red. It's amazing to think they were once part of a living tree. That poor tree. "She's really nice. You don't have to help, Aimee."

"Yep. Yep. She's nice." Alan shakes his head like it's all too much and too awkward to deal with.

"It's good to meet you, Ms. Parson," I say, and extend my hand even though I'm still squatting.

She shakes it.

"It's the mill work," she apologizes and stands up. "It's giving me blisters. My hands haven't toughened up yet."

I stand up, too. "I'm so sorry. I hope I didn't squeeze too tight."

"Not at all," she says while Alan turns her hands over and inspects them. There are new blisters on the pads underneath each of her fingers where they join the palm, but as we watch the redness starts to fade. I've healed her.

She c.o.c.ks her head like a puppy.

"How strange." Her voice goes serious and quiet. "I can tell you're a good girl, Aimee. You'll be good to him, right?"

"I will," I say. "I promise."

She drops her hand and the moment is gone. "You two go on and talk. As long as no police cars or princ.i.p.als show up, I'll be happy. What a day."

Alan hugs her. "You're a trooper, mom."

"Yeah, right ..." She laughs.

Alan leads me up the stairs. "My room is up here."

"Next to Court's, right?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot you've been here before."

"Only about a million times," I say.

"Keep the door open!" Ms. Parson yells up the stairs.

"Mom!" Alan turns bright red. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply for a second. "Sorry ..."

He motions to the guestroom that Court's mom used to do quilt projects in. It smells tangy and sweet. I sniff. "That's sage."

Alan nods to some herb stuff by the bookcase. "I was burning it."

I step a little farther inside. It's already a very boy room. There are posters featuring some rock bands that I have no clue about. Clothes are strewn in one corner. There's a bed, a stereo on a shelf above the bed, a bed, a rug by the bed, a bed ...

I look away from the bed.

There's nowhere else to sit though, except the floor.

He plops himself down on the bed. There's a little smudge of something black by his ear. "Come on, Red. It's okay. I'm not going to bite."

"It's just ..." I sit next to him, stiff and annoying, probably. "It's just ... There's a lot going on, and today was-I felt like I couldn't do anything, like I couldn't do enough, you know?"

"Yeah. I know."

We're quiet for a moment. Then I say, "I'm tired of worrying about everything."

He grabs my hand. "Me, too. It'd be nice if we could just like each other instead of ... instead of ..."

"Instead of being warriors in the battle for Courtney's soul? Instead of being star-crossed lovers kicked out of school, beaten up by Blake's posse, questioned by police, and hounded by reporters?"

"You make it all sound so glamorous." He pokes me in the side with his finger. "Loosen up, Red. We'll take care of this."

"You're only sounding confident because you think I expect you to sound confident." I breathe in and look at him. "You don't need to be confident. It's okay to be human. It's okay to be scared."

He brushes the hair off my forehead. His big hand holds the hair there. "Like you were scared in the river?"

I nod.

"Tell me what happened," he says.

So, I do.

I'm pretty much through my story when my cell phone rings. I check out the display name even though I recognize the ringtone. "It's my dad." I snap it open. "Hey, Dad!"

"Hey, sweetie." He sounds preoccupied, even though he called me. "How are things over there?"

"Okay. I met Alan's mom. She's nice," I say. Alan gives me a cheesy thumbs-up. I give it back. He shifts closer and behind me, his arm around my waist. I lean back.

"So what are you doing?" my dad asks.

"We're just hanging out." I cough.

"Uh-huh. Good, good." He sounds like he sounds when I call him up at work and he's talking to me and simultaneously reading interoffice memos or e-mail. "Look, honey-there are more reporters here now."

"More reporters? Why?"

"I don't know. Slow news day, I guess, and it doesn't help that I'm your father: Hospital CEO's daughter saves boy who beat up her boyfriend the same day. "

I pull in a breath. "Oh. You know about that."

"The whole town knows about it now, Aimee."

"They jumped him, Dad. He's not a jerk. I swear." When I say it, Alan's arm stiffens a little bit.

"Blake's missing."

I can barely manage to say the words. "I heard."

"I just ... Can you sleep over there tonight? Sleep in Courtney's room, maybe?"

"You want me to sleep here?" My stomach lurches. "What if something happens and I'm not there?"

"Aimee, nothing is going to happen. I have things under control. There's just no way I can get you back into the house without these reporters getting some shots. There are way too many now. Even Alan's football moves won't be able to do much."

"Fine."

"Fine?" he prods.

I meet Alan's eyes. "I'll ask if I can stay."

The women of the house bustle all around.

"We'll put you in Court's room," Court's mom says. "She's got one more night at the hospital. She'll be fine with you sleeping in her bed."

"Yeah. I know ... It's just weird to sleep in it without her." Alan is giving me an odd look. "Whenever we have sleepovers we share the bed. Courtney always kicks me."

"And then complains that Aimee hogs the covers," Mrs. Tucker explains, smiling sweetly. She hands me some of Court's teddy-bear pj's. They are going to be way too short.

"Which I don't," I insist. "Alan. Stop looking so amused."

"I'm not amused," he says, backing up.

"Right." I hold the pj's to my face and sniff in the good fabric-softener scent of them. "Has the news said anything about Blake? Is he still missing?"

"No word." Mrs. Tucker leans against the wall right by Court's poster of Miley Cyrus, which she put up in a snarky way, not because she's a fan. At one sleepover we painted fangs on Miley's face with pink nail polish. Mrs. Tucker taps the poster. "Remember when you did this?"

"We had a monster Miley-hate on," I explain. "We were thirteen or something."

That's when all of it gets me. We will never be thirteen-year-old happy again. We will never not know about possession and evil. Chris Paquette will be dead forever. Mr. Tucker will be dead forever, and Blake ... I don't know if he's dead, too.

I try to smoosh all the worry and fear down into my stomach so I can seem strong. I hustle them out of the room so they don't think I'm weak. Alan's got these worry lines showing up around his eyes, but I just peck his cheek.

"Good night," I whisper, and then shut the door behind him.

It's only when I'm all alone in Court's room that I press my fingers into my eyelids and let the sadness overwhelm me.

I don't know how we're ever going to beat this.

* 22 *

ALAN.

I can't sleep. I can't even pretend to sleep. Part of it is nervousness. What kind of supernatural craziness might happen tonight? But, of course, that's only part of it. A small part, really. Aimee is there, right across the hall, in my cousin's bed. Wearing those cute teddy-bear pajamas.

I shouldn't think about that. But it takes my mind off my stomach. It's been about twelve hours since I ate anything, and that was just a few bites of school lunch. Just a doughnut before that. It's been, what-about thirty hours since I had a real meal. My stomach growls in acknowledgment of that fact.

All I can think about is hunger and Aimee in a bed across the hall.

Is she asleep? Is she lying awake thinking about me? What is she thinking? Is she thinking about sneaking into my room like I'm thinking about sneaking into hers? Into Courtney's room, I correct myself. What if I went?